When You Need to Leave, But You Still Want to Stay
Nina Röder
2024 — Germany
About this series
My grandparents lived in Bohemia, a historically Czech region with a large German-speaking population. After the war ended, most Germans remaining in Czechoslovakia were expelled by force and lost everything they owned to the newly established Czechoslovak government. Eventually, they settled in Germany, but one memory of their trauma remained: they could never throw anything away, no matter how well they built a new life. For more than 60 years, they lived in the same house in Windsbach. By the time they died in 2018, they were both close to 90 years old. Due to the circumstances in which all the descendants lived, we were unable to keep the house.Before the sale, my mother, brother, and cousin cleaned it out. These pictures were taken inside the house during this cathartic, though difficult, process. My focus was on the endless decisions about whether to keep or give away historical objects or objects with emotional significance. Even though the process was taxing, doing absurd things in the photographs helped us not to be too sad about losing the house. By performing and acting for the camera, we found a way to deal with our loss and express our grief.
Photographer: Nina Röder
Nationality: German
Based in: Hamburg/Berlin – Germany
Website: ninaroeder.de
Instagram: @ninaroeder
Nina Röder studied Media Art and Design with the focus on photography at Bauhaus University in Weimar/Germany. Next to her artistic activities she holds a Ph.D. in the field of artistic research. Her photographs have been shown in international festivals and museums, such as the GoaPhoto Festival in India, the European Month of Photography in Berlin or the Format Festival in Derby/UK. Nina’s artistic focus is on photographic works that negotiate sublime structures of biographical narratives and combine aspects of the performative with the time-based image space of photography. The often absurd or poetic atmosphere of her scenographies conveys the tension of her figures’ biographical experiences. The series about her family are explicitly searching for hidden and historical mechanisms of personality development and inherited traumas. A whimsical – often humorous – approach plays a crucial role. Nina’s photographs in the natural space negotiate different aspects of psychological states in connection with the phenomenon of letting go of people.
Since 2017 Nina is a Professor of Photography at University of Europe for Applied Sciences in Hamburg.
Nina is a member of the DFA (German Photographic Academy) and the DGPh (German Photographic Society.)
She lives and works in Hamburg and Berlin.